THE import of the name Videsh Sanchar has probably not sunk into the patriotic Hindutva affront and its political outfit BJP. In which case they would have changed it into Swadesh Sanchar. For, if you have closely observed its advertisements and Home Page, it certainly has a Swadeshi touch.
IN any case, its performance does not help in embellishing its image or matching it with the Videshi
I have a dial up connection, under some scheme which I cannot recall. I use it sparingly when my other dial up connection does not work. That its use is free between 11 pm and 8 am (?) is not a professional merit, but a concession for covering up its incompetence. In my case that is also of no use as my other connection is of an unlimited nature.
Unlike private ISPs, some problems which I would like to point out as limitations of the VSNL are the following:
Initial insistence that the buyer should buy the connection personally (I had a lot of altercation over this issue), though I believe, subsequently, the VSNL has been engaging dealers or agents.
Its bureaucratic baggage (the pass word inside the cover was typed or written so clumsily that I had to spend a lot of time to decipher it. When I tried to contact the VSNL it turned out to be a Saturday, a holiday for our Babus and their entourage.
In case of failure beyond working hours, if my information is correct, there is no way of restoring the connection.
I do not see much difference in speed between VSNL and other ISPs. If anything, it is slower.
A couple of days ago a lawyer to whom I had sent an e-mail told me that he has not been able to open his e-mails in the Outlook Express, and since he is too busy a person, he had no time to attend to the problem. The result? All of a sudden some 70 odd e-mails flowed out from his VSNL connection, most of them junk, of which one was mine (not a junk) sent on January 14 and received on January 21! This should make proud our Post Offices about which we have any number of complaints!
The VSNL Home Page for users is sterile, devoid of any internet or intellectual imagination, and smacks of bureaucracy stalking even the web sites. Other ISPs like Yahoo and MSN are much much better.
To conclude, could anyone make a realistic comparison of VSNL with MSN, Yahoo, or AOL? I think we are a far far cry away from these multi-national giants. Calling VSNL the Gateway of India is probably an affront to India and the joke of the Millennium.